BERLIN – What’s next?
That’s the question Washington Street residents are asking following a meeting of the town’s housing board of review that left the issue of the condemned and dilapidated home at 203 Washington St. unresolved. While some neighbors of the historic home want to see it saved, town officials say it’s headed toward demolition if it’s not brought up to code immediately.
“We don’t want it torn down. We just want it compliant with the code,” Washington Street resident Tom Sholtis said.
Sholtis was one of close to 20 town residents in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting of the Berlin Housing Board of Review. The board, which was defunct for nearly a decade, was recently reconvened to address a number of derelict homes within the town. The first case it considered was 203 Washington St., an 1878 home owned by Teresa Almony and Gary Lerner for the past three decades.
According to Dave Engelhart, Berlin’s planning director, the home was condemned in 2006 and for years the property owners have failed to address a myriad of maintenance issues. In a letter to the property owners in August, Engelhart described the home’s “structurally unsound” front porch, its broken windows, failing roof and population of vermin. Lerner and Almony were given 15 days to bring the home into compliance with the town code.
While Lerner did begin to make some improvements at the aging home, he filed an appeal with the housing board. When the board met to hear the appeal at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, though the audience was full of concerned residents, Lerner was not one of them. The board, with Dave Engelhart acting as chairman in the absence of regular chair Tara Downes, who arrived later, agreed to treat the appeal as if it had never been filed with Lerner’s failure to appear. That decision came at the advice of Dave Gaskill, the town’s attorney.
Resident Pete Cosby asked what that meant for the house.
“We have an interest in having this house evaluated to save it because Washington Street has been trashed with a lot of modern houses,” Cosby said. “This house has a lot of character. I personally think it can be saved.”
Gaskill said Lerner had already been given time to make repairs.
“It is likely if it is not repaired very quickly it will move to demolition,” he said.
When Lerner arrived 15 minutes late, the board struggled with the question of whether or not to allow the appeal to be reopened. Board member Jeff Ricks made a motion to allow Lerner to make his case, but it failed to get a second.
“I don’t agree with this motion,” board member Mary Moore said. “I feel like this has been eight, nine years. We all have a lot of questions what happened, why this happened, why the neighborhood is losing property values when a home as lovely as this home could have been is left to full on neglect. It’s difficult for me to feel you’ve shown the town any respect.”
Lerner interjected that the house had been under construction all week.
“If I let my grass grown over an inch tall, they want to tear my house down,” he said.
He went on to say he’d been warned about the town.
“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” he said.
Cosby told him if he didn’t like the town he should sell the house and leave. When Lerner answered that the home was for sale right now, Cosby asked the price.
“That’s totally irrelevant,” Lerner said. “I own it. That’s not the topic of discussion. I own the house.”
Cosby pointed out Lerner had just said the house was for sale.
“You’ve got a whole roomful of people who live on the street and have an interest in saving the house,” he said. “For 10 years you’ve let it rot.”
The board abruptly voted to adjourn the meeting. When asked afterward what was next for the property, Engelhart said it was too soon to say.
“Enforcement allows us to repair or demolish it,” he said.
